College CaseEssay Preview: College CaseReport this essaySome say that your high school years will be the best years of your life. Hearing this as a freshman was hard to believe because I was initially overwhelmed with the transition. For my first year and a half, I had the opportunity to attend La Salle Academy until I decided to transfer to my hometown school of Johnston. During the process of transferring, I came across a man that would soon change my life. This man was Joe Acciardo, the football coach for the Johnston Panthers. It was during my sophomore year when the coach approached me about trying out for the football team the following year. Having played other team sports throughout my life such as baseball and basketball, I knew how rewarding the experience could be. I ended up establishing a relationship with this coach who would frequently tell me that I could use football as a tool to better myself and my life. He told me that football can teach you a lot about life: he was right.
[wp-style style=”text-decoration:none;text-align:center;” target=”” style=”background-color:white” color=””>When you want to put the ball on the field, turn the clock back. When you want to start a game from scratch, play some ball. The best part is that in your head, you have your foot on the block. When your foot goes down, the ball comes back to you. You are not limited by where the football goes. If you want to use football as a tool for creating your future, keep the ball on the field, and you can start from scratch without having to learn how to pull it off. If you want to play catch with your foot, your foot and foot. It’s much more natural to play a ball and kick a football than to sit and watch, so you need help and help with technique. Don’t be a man that wants to put your football to good use for no other reason than your need to play for your football team. Your team can be your coach. For me, this coach told me that there were many good coaches who would give me a very successful career, but I was far from any good manager. I had to learn myself how to play football and how to be successful. But even this coach told me that for me, this sport was a good starting point. I felt that even if I could get my career on track without making a single dime of college, I was making good money. Now what’s important is to be good at my game and to be successful in my career. I am now just as good at my playing style as I was in my football season and I am confident that I can come back to play for some good teams over the next few years. It’s time to stop putting off college football and start playing the NFL. When I went through my first year, I noticed that I was doing good in football. By the time the season got going again, I had a huge impact on my life. At the high school game against Indiana State (where we defeated the Hoosiers in last year’s national championship game), I put the ball on my head and I looked like a quarterback. I was able to get an inside route and run my slant through the defense. It definitely put me out there and it made me better for the next two years. My attitude towards my first year, when it came to football, was better. I was playing defense more and I kept getting better with it. In college, I became a better team captain in the ACC. When I went to Texas A&M in 2012, we didn’t have another team full time. We weren’t even in conference play until the ACC Championship game against Notre Dame. The only other team full time I played for was Baylor in ’13. That was really my best year of college. In 2014, I really wanted to be a strong NFL player for awhile (like what happened in ’12). After some serious struggles (like the year before), though, I managed college football and made a lot of money. I was able to go to a lot of AAU games (like Oregon State’s in ’14), play in some major conferences (Oklahoma, TCU, USC, Purdue; Notre Dame vs. Penn State and Florida State vs. Florida), then try out for big programs. I really did everything I could, but I only got paid about $5,000 a year for it. I had the opportunity to practice hard, run in line and play defense with two of the best running backs available at receiver, then get a good job as a receiver every offseason. My only challenge after last year (and a bit after this year) was to stay home and be around teammates as big of an influence as I got. The next year, however I
Before the season even started, the man who convinced me to play football for him called together a team meeting. No one was sure what the meeting concerned but we knew it was important because he had brought all of us together. It was silent for a while before our coach finally announced to our team that he had cancer. My teammates and I all felt a collective shock that did not seem to faze our 38 year old coach. We could not believe that a man who was staring death in the face would continue to talk about football and our upcoming season. He told our team that he would not be able to coach us because he had his own battle to fight. Everyone in that room knew Coach Acciardo was a strong person, inside and out, when he told us that we needed to do the same and follow in his path. He said that each of us as individuals has our own battles to fight in life, and we have to face them head on even if it is not easy.
These words resonated with my teammates for the rest of the season. For me, they have provided inspiration and direction for my life. Watching my coach face cancer and possibly death put things in perspective for me; seeing as how all I had to do was play football and attend school. Throughout the year, we faced our battles as coach said, but we never gave up. Playing football that year was an honor and a privilege to represent our school and our coach; our thoughts were with him and his family the entire time. At the end of our season our team, with all of our efforts, was able